W.E. ROCK :: World Extreme Rockcrawling

Reno wasn't built in a day

By: Aaron Campbell

W.E.ROCK Live Editor-In Chief

All great ideas are born on the back of napkins, envelopes, post-it notes, or scraps of paper. This would include the Reno Rocks concept. Born on the back of a napkin in January, Reno Rocks is the brainchild of Barbara Woodward of the Sands Regency Casino in downtown Reno, Nevada. This napkin that held all of her ideas is all that Barbara had to convince Big Rich and the Sands Regency that the time for a major rock crawling event in downtown Reno was now. Luckily for Barbara her napkin worked. The wheels would be put into motion for what would become an incredible event to be staged in the parking lot of the Sands Regency Casino.

For the event to be staged, the Sands Regency Casino would make the space and materials available for Lil’ Rich to design and build a state of the art facility. The only trick was making the course happen in the time allocated for the project. Conventional man-made rock crawling courses are constructed in about the span of a month. The Reno Rocks project would only have about the span of one week to make the build happen. With the course being a temporary course certain aspects of normal construction could be skipped, for time constraints, and to allow for easier demolition after the event.

The project would begin with two and a half weeks to go before the event. The dirt foundation layer would be placed over the designated course area, and the compaction process would begin. The dirt for the project would be brought in from the Reno Aces baseball stadium. With the dirt placed on the site, the real construction could begin.

The real course construction would begin with two weeks to go before the event. The base for the course would be composed of the rubbish field cuttings from the local hay producers, and from straw bales. A total of 45 tons of rubbish material would be used before the concrete would be sprayed. Over a total of three days the material would be stacked and placed to create what would become the rocks for the crawl course. The larger ½ bales of field cuttings would create the base shape of the rocks, and all of the smaller straw bales would be placed around the larger bales to help create the rest of the shapes desired. The smaller bales would serve to create steeper banks, ramps, and harder break over sections for the drivers. To help create a more rounded shape on the obstacles, dirt would be used to finish out the sculpting of the formations. It would take two and a half days to create all of the shapes needed.

After all of the formations were placed, the concrete crew, would take to the course. The skilled pumpers would spray all of the formations with a lighter less dense mix of gunite, and the crew would only have to spray the formations about half as thick as a permanent course. Normally courses would be sprayed with a higher density and durable form of gunite. A permanent course is usually sprayed 6-9 inches thick, but this course would be sprayed 3-5 inches thick. The thinner coating of gunite and less dense composition would allow for quicker and easier deconstruction as opposed to using a denser and thicker spray. Also using a thinner coating would allow for the concrete to harden more thoroughly before it would be used. Gunite can be used in a competition setting just three days after the finish of spraying. The concrete at Reno Rocks would have almost five full days to cure before the start competitions. The course would be concreted in just a day and a half.

A record build would highlight what would be a state of the art course. From start to completion of the major construction a total time of around four days is all it would take for the course to be constructed. An amazing feat when you consider the amount of time it normally takes for a world class competition course to go through the construction process and to think it all started on the back of a napkin.